


REFLECTIONS

by Cerridwen



Category: Star Trek Into Darkness - Fandom, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-18 22:00:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8177617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerridwen/pseuds/Cerridwen
Summary: Alone in his cell Khan Noonien Singh reflects on the mistakes he has made.





	

The cell where Khan Noonien Singh lay imprisoned was quiet. The scientists and doctors had all left for now, but Khan knew that they would be back to draw more blood, to take more samples, trying to crack the mysteries of his DNA.

His mouth twisted in a bitter line. _Hypocrites_! They condemned his people as monsters, calling them racists and tyrants. Yet all the while they justified the atrocities that they committed against him and his people on their own perceived moral and genetic superiority. But that was nothing new. For all their advances in technology humanity had not evolved at all. They were still the same brutal, cruel race they were 300 years ago. They just hid it better.

With grim resolution Khan turned his mind from that path of rage and frustration and turned to look inward.

With brutal honesty Khan couldn’t deny his failures, his weaknesses. He had been so tired of war, of killing. He had only wanted to free his crew and leave his accursed birth world and race far behind him. Yet he had not wanted to kill any more than he had to. Looking back on his choices with the cold unflinching eyes that his first instructors in the art of war had drilled into him in his childhood he faced the mistakes he had made.

Opening negotiations with Spock had been one of them. It had been unnecessary and a waste of time. While he had needed the Enterprise to lower its shields for him to locate his torpedoes he could have just as easily have destroyed the deflector disk along with the command bridge and the life support. The remaining crew would have scrambled to evacuate the ship leaving him free to beam on board and rescue his crew. But he had been swayed by the bright young captain, who despite his betrayal of Khan on the bridge had still impressed him with his courage and loyalty to his crew. Then there was the mercy he had shown to Khan on Qo’Nos. Though he hadn’t known it at the time he had also spared Khan’s crew. Khan’s own code of honour demanded that he repay the debt, even if Kirk didn’t know it. So he had fired to cripple Kirk’s ship, targeting only the warp core and engineering, taking his revenge for Kirk’s betrayal of his trust in the disciplined beating he had given him and in his final taunting words to him.

That was another of his mistakes. His parting words to Kirk had been spoken in anger and bitter pride. He had been surprised by the depths of pain and rage he had felt at the young Captain’s betrayal of him and even more surprised that he had let his guard down to such an extent that he had actually trusted him. He should have known better. Normal humans never changed.

Khan sighed as a wave of weary bitterness passed through him. Normal humans always assumed the worst of him and his people so it had seemed useless to argue with them. It would only waste time and time was the one thing he hadn’t had.

Looking back he could see where he had let his emotions sway him.

He had been so desperate to rescue his crew, had been so filled with wonderful relief when the last of the torpedoes had been beamed over that he had not taken proper precautions. If he had only checked the torpedoes before releasing Kirk and his other two hostages he would have discovered Spock’s treachery. He had not. He had been hasty and too arrogant in his surety of his own strength as Commander of the Vengeance. That arrogance and haste had enabled Spock to deceive him. That was another of his mistakes. He hadn’t questioned Spock and that had allowed Spock to strike at his one weakness, his family.

Scorching fury whipped through him as he recalled that moment on the bridge as he watched helplessly as the torpedoes detonated. Once again he felt that all-consuming agony as he watched his family die, murdered while they were defenceless in cyrostasis and at the hands of someone Khan had saved and protected in battle, someone he had just shown mercy to!

Hoping beyond hope that one or two might have survived against all odds, he had raced through the corridors of his wounded ship, staggering with every jerk and shudder. But there had been nothing left. He could only whisper their names one by one in agony as he looked at the destruction and wreckage that was all that was left of his people.

“Joaquin, Katie, Otto, Ling . . .” one by one their names fell as a sacred prayer and an agonising lament. Dead! Gone! His heart and his very soul! And with them had died his mercy and compassion.

He had thrown back his head and screamed his rage and pain to the uncaring stars.

As if in answer to his cry the ship had lurched and sent Khan flying. Around him the ship had groaned as if in anguish.

Struggling against the inertia of the ship Khan had gradually made his way back to the bridge. One look at the controls told him what had happened. The explosion of the torpedoes hadn’t just destroyed the Vengeance’s weapons systems (along with his family!) it had seriously damaged the engines. The Vengeance was caught in Earth’s gravity well. For a moment Khan stood silent, staring out at the view screen at the planet he and his family had tried so hard to escape. Tears streaked down his face. It had all been for nothing! All that he had endured under Marcus, begging on his knees for the lives of his loved ones!  For all the mercy he had shown to the Enterprise they had murdered his innocent people just to strike back at him! Very well! If that was Starfleet’s much vaunted mercy and compassion then he would repay them in kind.

In his cell Khan flinched at the memory but refused to turn away from it. This was his greatest failure, his greatest mistake and thus his greatest shame. He had believed only the evidence of his eyes, just as he had after his failed attempt at smuggling his crew to safety. In both cases he had not stopped to investigate or to verify their deaths, he had just attacked and innocent people had died.

In grim penance he turned his mind to those moments on the bridge and forced himself to relive them, no matter how his heart cried out against it. Once again he felt the anguish and the red rage that had so clouded his mind as he sent the crashing Vengeance towards Starfleet headquarters. It did not matter that he had not targeted the city but rather the military headquarters of Starfleet. The computer had warned him that the engines were compromised and he had still confirmed the destination. Nothing had mattered then beyond taking as many of his family’s killers with him to the grave. He would not go quietly into that good night nor would he meekly surrender to these butchers! If the Augment race was to be destroyed then their killers would pay a high price in blood as well for their victory!

The rest of the Vengeance’s dive into San Francisco was a blur of fragmented memories and haze of grief and pain. He had a vague recollection of missing the Enterprise by mere metres. When the Vengeance hit it was with devastating force. By the time it had stopped moving Khan had been amazed to still be alive, although the pain of his injuries had assured him of this unwelcome fact. He had not wanted to be. He had wanted only to join his people. But alive he was and for once he cursed his genetic augmentations that had refused to accept death.

With wide eyes, he had glanced around the ruins of his ship. He couldn’t stay here. Moving awkwardly and groaning with pain he had pulled himself away from the back of the chair where he had landed after the crash and slid down to the hole in the ship where the view screen had been.

In his cell Khan squeezed his eyes shut and gave a moan of anguish and shame as he recalled the destruction his actions had caused. The sight that had met his eyes had been almost a physical blow that had left him gasping. The Vengeance had completely missed his target and had instead wiped out the inner harbour and surrounding area. There would be hundred if not thousands of civilian causalities! This had never been his intention! He had never meant for the innocent to die, only his family’s killers!

But this changed nothing and in the privacy of his mind Khan accepted the burden of those he had killed as he had done so many times throughout his rise to power and his fall. He refused to be like the normal humans who had created his race, who had later tried to foist off the responsibility of their actions onto anyone else, most especially his people. He recalled again his first teacher in the art of strategy and tactics, a stern and rigid man who had lived by an unbreakable code of honour. “A man takes responsibility for what he has done, just as a commander takes responsibility for those under his command. If he does not then he is not a man.” When the scientists had wanted to start conditioning the augments to resist interrogation if captured by subjecting them to torture techniques he had objected. Khan and his brothers and sisters had only been 11 at the time and his teacher had thought that they were too young. For this he had been killed on the orders of the leaders of the Eugenics project.  The excuse that the scientists had given was that it had been an accident caused by the man’s carelessness but Khan had known the truth and had engraved the man’s teaching in his heart for he had been one of the few normal humans to ever show them any kindness and morality.

But he had known it would not be justice that he received at the hands of the normal humans, for either himself or his lost people. So he had gathered himself against the pain of his injuries and had leapt free of his ship.

Looking back on Spock’s pursuit of him through San Francisco Khan had to admit that he had gravely underestimated the Vulcan. He had shown that there was a savagery and a rage in him that was the equal to any augment. He still felt the man’s pain and fury from when he had tried to violate Khan’s mind. He had also proven to be a formidable fighter as well, though not Khan’s equal of course. Without the intervention of the Starfleet officer with the phaser Khan would have killed Spock at the end.

In the same pitiless light of examination to which Khan had subjected his past actions, he had to admit that as humiliating as it was and although the woman had attacked him first, thereby allowed the Vulcan’s successful attack from behind, it was also only her intervention that had stopped the Vulcan from beating him to death. As dazed as he had been from the Vulcan’s blows he had still heard the woman’s screams.

“Stop! He’s our only chance to save Kirk!”

Thinking back on that, a rough laugh pulled itself out of Khan’s chest. His life had been spared only to save the life of the man he had tried not to kill, only to learn that he inadvertently had. And that the man had died saving not only his own crew from Khan’s actions but had also inadvertently saved Khan’s crew!

Khan closed his eyes as a shudder passed through him. He had almost killed his own crew! His family lived only thanks to James Kirk! This was the bitterest of all the ironies that had beset him from the moment he had been awoken by Marcus.

This was what had led him to give his aid to McCoy to create the serum that had saved Kirk, to repay this final debt he owed him. Regardless of what either of them intended, Khan to endanger his crew or Kirk to save them, both had still happened.

So when McCoy had come full of desperation and anger and told him what Kirk had done Khan had given him the knowledge he needed. He had only placed one condition on his terms; that McCoy would tell no one of how it was done.

McCoy had condemned him for this, yelling “There’s hundreds of injured and dying people because of you mister! You could at least try and save some of them! You owe it to us! You owe it to Jim!”

Khan had been torn between incredulous laughter and an urge to smash through the energy barrier and strangle McCoy. _Owed it!_ Of course the normal human would think that. Khan accepted and mourned the loss of innocent lives and if an honourable restitution had been offered, would have accepted it. But he knew only too well what humanity would do not only to him but to his crew. After all, he had lived through that hell once as a child and he knew that if Starfleet had any idea of how to use his blood they would turn his crew into nothing more than living blood banks . . . but if they had the idea but didn’t know how to make the serum? Then at the very least they wouldn’t kill his crew outright. Not yet.

It was gamble and a desperate one but he knew humanity’s arrogance and greed, knew that the dangled bait would almost certainly cause them to jump. And that might be the one thing that would keep his crew alive, at least for a while. Given enough time he would craft a way for them to escape.

But to explain that to this doctor, so full of his own pain and his own sense of the self-righteousness of his race would be a waste of time at best, a danger at worse. He would deny utterly that Starfleet would experiment and torture his people, all the while ignoring the fact that he had taken Khan’s blood without his consent. It had only been desperation that had driven him to finally ask. So he had turned a deaf ear to the doctor’s exhortations and demanded his word in exchange.

In his mind’s eye Khan saw again the rage and disgust on McCoy’s face as he agreed to the bargain. He knew that he had once again confirmed the image normal humans had of his race, that they were arrogant selfish monsters who lived only to slaughter the peace loving normal humans.

But his duty to his crew came before everything else. What McCoy couldn’t understand was that Khan was bound by chains far stronger than anything Starfleet could imprison him in. Bonds of love and obligation and honour that he had freely chosen to wear and that he would never break. This was something the doctor couldn’t understand, although Khan thought that Kirk would. He had shown him that whatever else lay between them they had this much in common. That there was nothing they wouldn’t do to protect their crews, their families.

That was yet another reason Khan had given his knowledge and blood to McCoy. Recognition of Kirk’s proven superiority in the face of loss and destruction and that Kirk had proven that he truly did understand what it meant to be a leader. It was not about a want for power but a duty to protect those under them. It was not about privilege but sacrifice. For a good leader, be he King or Captain their desires, their needs, their very lives were as nothing compared to the safety and well-being of their people.

 In the silence of his mind he renewed his vow to his family. _Whatever I must do, whatever the cost I must pay, I will never stop until you are safe and free. And I will endure whatever I must to ensure that you are never the ones who must pay for my mistakes._

One of those mistakes he now accepted had been his lack of patience. He had struck too soon, had underestimated his enemies without gathering the full intelligence he needed.

So now he must play a waiting game. He must wait to see if Starfleet would take the bait. He accepted now that it would years if not more before he could inveigle a way through the net they would weave around him. After the many deaths he had caused in San Francisco and London they would not try to bargain with him yet. Not until they had no other means of getting what they wanted. During that time they would use whatever torture they could to break him. But that too was nothing new. The scientists who had created his race had trained them to withstand such things. He had survived it before, he would survive it now.

But for now the next move on the chessboard was Starfleet’s.

In the darkness of his cell Khan Noonien Singh waited.

 

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr at http://khantoelessar.tumblr.com/


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